At the Aikido School of Self-Defense, our adult students are comprised of all walks of life: from police officers and stay-at-home moms to old folks who are young students and young folks who are old students. Adult training is primarily geared toward practical and realistic defensive techniques. You can see from the information below that a great deal of training is done with a partner alternating as attacker (uke) and defender (nage). Both roles are stressed as each participant contributes his or her skills in order to enhance overall sensitivity, control, and understanding of defensive techniques. If you are interested in learning what you can expect to gain from training with us, please visit our dojo page to read about our goals and priorities. Some key aspects of our drills and instruction methodology include: • Attack line: the attack line is where each student is given an opportunity to defend against an attack from each of the other members present in class. White belts are attacked by black belts, and black belts are attacked by white belts. This system is designed to always benefit both attacker and defender. When a white belt attacks a black belt, the black belt must defend using a technique that the white belt has been taught; he cannot use a black belt defense technique on a white belt. When a black belt attacks a white belt, the black belt must use an attack that the white belt has been trained to defend. All of this facilitates each student’s continual refinement of all techniques leading up to their current skill level. • Partner blending: because redirection of the opponents force is a fundamental element of successful defense in aikido, partner blending is an essential practice. In it, the two participants alternate between attacker and defender and aim to blend themselves into each attack in order to diminish or neutralize its force – often incorporating distracting strikes (ateme) and deliberating disrupting the balance of the attacker. • Classical techniques: one component of progressing through the system requires learning classical aikido techniques specific to each belt rank. These techniques have very exacting means of execution which the student must demonstrate. This exacting technique is virtually never implemented in real life situations outside the dojo. Rather, we study these techniques within the controlled environment of the dojo to equip each student to apply them flexibly in real life situations. Thus, each technique is not in and of itself a complete approach to defending against types of attacks. This is explored via ‘applications’. To view the specific technique sets for each belt, click over to our dojo. • Applications: while each student is expected to learn classical aikido techniques, their power for our everyday lives becomes most tangible via ‘applications’. Each student is expected to become intimately familiar with methods of applying each technique to real situations – requiring flexibility and spontaneous reactivity. On the battlefield of everyday life, one cannot pause to reflect on a specific defensive structure when life commands immediate flexibility. Effective defense often happens within the first instant of an attack; not after careful readjustment of the scenario. As such, each student must learn several ways to employ a technique in real life attack situations. These are our ‘applications’. • Weapons: students will be trained in use of and defense against weapons. This includes, but is not limited to, staffs of different lengths, sticks, clubs, knives, and guns.